edit sorry I shouldn't have posted this in this section, feel free to move!

I hate to point out the obvious but it appears this forum is dying and I wanted to state my opinion clearly. I hate to be that 'complaining guy' but there seems to be little interest in the lego castle genre based on my online and personal Brickfair experiences over the last year.

It seems to me there are few and far between classic castle builders because there are no modern official lego classic castle sets--NONE. The last classic castle sets were from the 80s and early 90's, lets be real. While the medieval market village from a few years ago was great, the joust set also great in it's own right(I bought both), those were not castle sets per-se. The Kings Castle was frankly a "duplo" joke and the "Kingdoms" sets were not much better. This is my opinion and sorry if I offend, but I feel Lego needs to drop the castle line entirely and reboot it with small pieces only, my 5 year old nephew completed a 96 piece lego set in less than 20 minutes. This is not the time to "dumb down" their product" but rather the opposite.

I worry that the LEGO company is unable or unwilling to make these changes as I am pessimistic, but I have hope, I hope you fellow lego builders understand my post.

Ben

Last edited by bps7772000 on Wed Aug 19, 2015 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There certainly has been a lull around this site lately, but I'm not sure if I would attribute that to a lack of castle interest in general. Rather I think that a lot of the action in the castle-building community in the last few years has been focused on the roleplay community world-building: Roawia (now on Merlin's Beard), Guilds of Historica (on Eurobricks) and the Lands of Mythron (on MOCpages). I suppose we have to think seriously about how to reignite some of the buzz around CC.com and think that that is a fair critique.

As to interest in building, I certainly see a lot of stuff online. I can't speak to the scene at fests other than to note how many great MOCs I see posted on Flickr, though it certainly may be my selection bias that I pay more attention to the castle stuff. I also know of various castle LEGO themed books in the works, so it seems that the publishing world has been paying attention to castle.

But there is a great deal of truth to the fact that vibrant official themes help feed the fan base. They inspire new castle builders and also give old castle builders the raw materials (new figs and specialize parts -- gray bricks are fairly easy to get) to feed their building. I'm not going to stop being a LEGO castle fan even if we go through a gap like the four-year break between Knights Kingdom and Knights Kingdom II, but that would mean a four-year gap of new blood coming into the theme. Since the close of the Tolkien sets last fall we haven't had any good castle stuff coming out (leaving aside small things like CMF figs). Now the rumor is that there will be something coming out next year that might be a space/castle mashup. We'll have to wait to see how much "castle" it will be and how much "space". That might prevent a true "castle" set coming out for a year or two, unless we get a one-off like the Joust set or something out of Ideas, unless of course some licensed theme pops up - either a renewal of Tolkien sets spurred by the Dimensions stuff or something else (what? I've got no suggestion of what an up-and-coming castle IP would be).

Bruce

PS I'm not sure whether this thread best belongs in Administrative (since it talks in part about the present and future of this site), in Castle Sets (since it talks about the official line) or in Castle MOCs (since you talk about the popularity of castle MOC building). With no clear driving force to one forum or another, I'll leave it where it is for now.

It has been rather quiet here lately, but I imagine that will change dramatically in the next few months with the CCC fast approaching.Personally, I check in daily, though I haven't been posting as much lately.

The Castle MOCing genre is still incredibly strong in my opinion, with lots of amazing builders contributing regularly.

There has been a lul, however I do see many great mocs an builders still. I my self havent done anything aside from drafting a few set, due to organizeing my area for CCC. I plan on having a few builds this year. And the fact that I am most active on merlins beard with Rowia.

I think that the site would benefit with the inclusion of new ideas and new blood amongst the mods, I personaly feel that the staff them selves are stagnint. I havent seen any new staff builds, due to real life or the staffs general changes in intrest as well, but such is life. A couple more seed part Challenges, or mabye a small mid year contest could liven things up. There are alot of things that take time on the host of these events an can be a major drain on the host though. So really I think there is alot of room for disscussion

There has been a lul in intrest in the comunity due to no new decent sets. The tolkin sets had a good bit to pull from but was also lacking in some areas. I want to see what is comming next year, it could be good. However with the largest toy company in the world going after major licenseing agreements, it will be intresting to see how there perenial themes will fair.

CC always gets sleepy during the summer but I also think it's a matter of what the Internet looks like nowadays. Forums aren't as central as they were ten years ago, with blogs, Twitter and Facebook having grown in importance. For what it is I still think CC has a lot to offer, with many good resources and exciting contests as well as a friendly community. Members, regular as well as staff, will always come and go, and will always have periods when they have many real life concerns or when interest in LEGO dwindles somewhat. Despite all this CC has remained and as long as some of us keep coming here it will remain. I see the growth of new platforms (such as Merlin's Beard) as something positive, since it seems to spark more interest in Castle building. CC is here to be a pillar in a vital Castle building community, our goal is not a position of monopoly of Castley matters and discussion.

I moved this from MOCs to Administrative simply because I do not believe it belongs in MOCs without the first post containing somebody's creation. (Or a contest thread.)

bps7772000 wrote:While the medieval market village from a few years ago was great, the joust set also great in it's own right(I bought both), those were not castle sets per-se.

Castle is the general name given to all of LEGO's medieval themes, so the MMV and Joust are castle sets the same way Maiden's Cart, Camouflaged Outpost, and Knight's Challenge are castle sets.

The Kings Castle was frankly a "duplo" joke and the "Kingdoms" sets were not much better. This is my opinion and sorry if I offend, but I feel Lego needs to drop the castle line entirely and reboot it with small pieces only, my 5 year old nephew completed a 96 piece lego set in less than 20 minutes. This is not the time to "dumb down" their product" but rather the opposite.

TLG tends to vary the target age groups for different product lines. See the transition from Knight's Kingdom II to Fantasy Era. This is nothing new and nothing to be alarmed about.

As for the decline in activity, there are many reasons. The role playing group moved to their own site. The last regular Castle series was small, uninspiring, and two years ago. Castle was never the most popular theme even in it's prime. It's summer, people are traveling instead of building.

Things will pick up again when the yearly Colossal Castle Contest begins, and if/when new castle sets are revealed for us to discuss. Right now, the theme doesn't have much going on. It's cyclical as it has always been. Classic-Castle was born during a four-year gap with no castle theme; it will survive a small lull in activity.

I get the impression there are an awful lot of lurkers here (myself included). I rarely go more than three days without checking in here. Bruce has been doing an incredible job of posting cool stuff that I would otherwise never see and the tutorials here are an invaluable asset to the community. Merlin's Beard just (finally) started their next contest and Mark is hosting his Colossal Battle Contest so we should see an uptick in MOCs posted for a few weeks. I owe the LoTR theme for really bringing me out of my dark ages but it died a sad, slow death and we really do need something new soon; preferably without bionic horses or little green men in chain mail.

I also check in on a daily basis, however I have not posted much. I only want to post something when I have something to say or when I i have build something Castly like and for the past time I have been working on something new but it is far from finished and other projects don't have anything to do with Castle so I don't post them here.

I think there are many more who think the same as I do and that results in a decline of activity. I also agree that roleplay has made a giant leap and has "stolen" posters from CC.

I think Maedhros nailed it. It's the Internet's evolution that is to blame more than anything. Forums just aren't the go-to place anymore. Classic Space 'died' many years ago when people moved to Flickr, and Classic Castle seems to be doing the same, or at least moving to other forums, like Merlins Beard. The lack of any substantial Castle theme is the other major factor, as others have already stated

I still find this a great resource, but the lack of activity has meant I don't visit it every day anymore. I suspect, if another castle theme, even close to the Kingdoms line of sets were to come out, CC will see an increase in activity. But for now, looks like we are just going to have to tough it out.

I am relatively new to CC as well. I have been a member for about a year and although I do not always post or comment, I do visit the site often. I gain a lot of inspiration from other builders here. I post almost everything I do on my flickr though. Perhaps I should be more active here. I do anticipate that things will pick up as the CCC gets here. always a busy time.

On the topic of the CCC, I have been thinking about it and I believe I would like to contribute to the prize pool with some customized Lego weapons I have made if this would be helpful. My apologies if this is not the right place to ask about this.

I'm back after long hiatus! ...(not that anyone know or misses me anyway)

It does seem less activity is happening around Classic-Castle forum except for the Castle MOC section. I remembered and am still fond of the good old days. Seems like many have move on to new interest in life, perhaps. There was SavaTheAggie (author of Ikros), Glencaer (CC City), Lord_Of_The_LEGO, architect and many others. I have been busy at Facebook and Flickr myself. But somehow I still remember Classic-Castle as being special.

Classic-Castle was the Go-To place to find out about LEGO Castle theme. I always look forward to new articles and information available on Classic-Castle. Even though I didn't post that much, I did participate in Henry's travel and some role-playing story. It was fun!

I noticed that the site has not been updated for quite some time now and some links don't work anymore. I agree with some of the posts above by Elephant Knight and Maedhros. But its nice to see Bruce N H and the new Admins & Mods still holding the fort. I hope Classic-Castle will get a revival again as the Go-To place to find Castle information. I'll be lurking around.

I pop in quite a bit, but I have to admit that I started to go a bit quiet after awhile for a few reasons... hmm... I guess if I had to put it in bullets I'd say something along the lines of...

1 - I'm not a big MOC builder, so after a few years, I just ran out of things to say about all the different MOCs... they're amazing, and there a good ideas, but I was starting to feel like a broken record

2 - I love LEGO stories, but there really is little interest in them, if I am honest with myself. When the LEGO roleplay and gaming started on CC, almost all story publishing seemed to stop for a long time. I've seen a few here and there since, but it's a sparse, inactive topic.

3 - Other topics seemed to get a bit low on material... I noticed I was reviewing the same set several times after a few years And I'm less intereted in medieval topics and etc.

I do love this site, so I come here often. I just find that I don't have much to add to the conversation that hasn't been said somewhere else

But I beleive that LEGO castle and it's community are still quite strong, and we are just sort of "in a season" so to speak

Knight Templar n. pl. Knights Templars or Knights Templar1.A member of an order of knights founded about 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land during the Second Crusade.